Hello—I’m wondering if any of you share the experience I’m about to describe and have any information about strategies on overcoming it. Further, I will say the experience I’m describing far transcends “impostor syndrome”—in fact, I would say that it is a sign of being a true imposter. That is, the very act of trying to focus on technical things causes an increasing build up of persecutory interpretations of the act of focusing on technical things—aka, observer-observed fusion to an excessive degree that further derails progress on the technical task.
Whenever I try to do things, whether math or programming, that rely heavily on logical reasoning, I start to have all sorts of thoughts pop up that have any or all properties of
a) replaying a negative situation from the past where I was insulted by my peers for being too stupid/slow for technical work, having intrusive images of the situation or having internally experienced verbal fragments of the situation
b) constructing imaginary extrapolated situations where future peer-like figures are insulting me real time while I’m doing the problem (e.g. saying things like “now do you remember what you did three steps ago? yeah that’s right, stupid fool”)
Somatically, I will notice my throat start to tighten and jaw clench as a result of repeated attempts to refocus my attention to the problem, despite taking breaks to meditate and breathe deeply, as well.
Do any of you have experience with the sort of noisy, somewhat persecutory (both remembered and extrapolated) narration of your own technical processing of information, causing a reinforcement of worse technical thinking, thereby completing a “loop” so to speak? If so, what are some strategies you have used to deal with these experiences?
[Should note that of course I’ve approached this from a psychiatric/therapeutic angle, but none of these yield traction. At this point, I’m feeling resigned that this is how my brain works (or rather, doesn’t)]
Hello—I’m wondering if any of you share the experience I’m about to describe and have any information about strategies on overcoming it. Further, I will say the experience I’m describing far transcends “impostor syndrome”—in fact, I would say that it is a sign of being a true imposter. That is, the very act of trying to focus on technical things causes an increasing build up of persecutory interpretations of the act of focusing on technical things—aka, observer-observed fusion to an excessive degree that further derails progress on the technical task.
Whenever I try to do things, whether math or programming, that rely heavily on logical reasoning, I start to have all sorts of thoughts pop up that have any or all properties of
a) replaying a negative situation from the past where I was insulted by my peers for being too stupid/slow for technical work, having intrusive images of the situation or having internally experienced verbal fragments of the situation
b) constructing imaginary extrapolated situations where future peer-like figures are insulting me real time while I’m doing the problem (e.g. saying things like “now do you remember what you did three steps ago? yeah that’s right, stupid fool”)
Somatically, I will notice my throat start to tighten and jaw clench as a result of repeated attempts to refocus my attention to the problem, despite taking breaks to meditate and breathe deeply, as well.
Do any of you have experience with the sort of noisy, somewhat persecutory (both remembered and extrapolated) narration of your own technical processing of information, causing a reinforcement of worse technical thinking, thereby completing a “loop” so to speak? If so, what are some strategies you have used to deal with these experiences?
[Should note that of course I’ve approached this from a psychiatric/therapeutic angle, but none of these yield traction. At this point, I’m feeling resigned that this is how my brain works (or rather, doesn’t)]